


But what do we WIN?

by CC_Writes



Series: RvB Fluff Week [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Board Games, Drinking, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Innuendo, Mild Language, Monopoly (Board Game), RvB Fluff Week, because Donut, because Kai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 04:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14180550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CC_Writes/pseuds/CC_Writes
Summary: For RvB Fluff Week!Prompt from secretlystephaniebrown: Carolina crushing everyone at Monopoly.When it comes to just about everything Carolina is EXTREMELY competitive. Even board games.





	But what do we WIN?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [secretlystephaniebrown (Hinn_Raven)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/gifts).



> No real warnings for this, but just as a heads up, I haven't played Monopoly in like a million years so I've probably forgotten like 90% of the rules, so keep that in mind and bear with me! XD 
> 
> And a thousand "thank you!"s to Prim the Amazing for helping me out when writer's block held my brain ransom! T^T

 

 

          If asked, Carolina would say that she... _might_ be a competitive person.

Just a little.

  
Could she really be blamed though? Wasn't like it was a problem or anything! It was just, fun, you know? Getting to challenge yourself if you had a good opponent, proving to yourself and sometimes others that you could do whatever the thing was? The adrenaline! The thrill of winning!

  
It's not a problem, shut up!

  
          Carolina wasn't entirely sure why they were playing Monopoly exactly. The game, while not overly complicated was also not known for being simple... or short... Not to mention there were only 8 pieces... And 10 people... Well, 11 maybe if you counted Lopez but she was pretty sure he wasn't actually playing.

It had been Donut's idea, something she was actually starting to expect when it came to situations like these. Starting to pick up on the shift in energy that spread through Red team when one was incoming. A kind of... Not nervousness, more a bracing? A kind of anticipation that what was about to happen had the potential to be equal parts good and bad.

Like the way, a flock of birds changed songs when a storm was coming.

So here they were. Eleven adults (Ten and one disinterested robot) crammed around one little game board, sat on the equally little coffee table that someone had gotten from... wherever it was that they got the things they had, honestly they sort of seemed to appear from nowhere....

Things were divvied up as followed. Her, Tucker, Kaikaina, Donut, Locus and Sarge each had their own pieces. Wash and Caboose were a team, and Simmons and Grif were a team. Which meant really that Simmons and Caboose were playing with Wash wrangling in the giant Blue's erratic choices and keeping him following the game rules, and Grif was eating popcorn and harassing Simmons, who had volunteered to be the banker.

  
          Sarge was off to her right, sitting in a chair, dragged from the kitchen, arms crossed, one leg over the other. His already narrow almond eyes were narrowed even further so that they almost looked closed, making his prominent crow's feet stand out all the more. Looked like he was focusing as hard as he could not on his token, but on the odd assemblage of red building pieces stacked on his lone property, purchased only because it was Red. He'd been trying to assemble the small pieces into a... oh lord the name he'd given it was so long, the gist was a giant robot, he wanted to make them a giant robot, but the hotels wouldn't stay stacked.

He lasted a lot longer than one might expect, but in the end, he was forced into bankruptcy by Kai and her bizarrely fortunate three properties in a row. No money, no property, he was done.

 

“Ah dang it! Forced into defeat by this Blue harlot!” The old man woefully proclaimed.

“Sarge,” Simmons sighed, organizing the wad of bills Grif had just shoved into the 'bank', “You spent all your money on Illinois Avenue, then you landed on her property and had nothing to pay with. You wouldn't sell your property so you forfeited. That's not her fault.”

“Harlot!” Sarge wailed.

“Hey!” said 'harlot' protested, “You wanna stay you gotta pay! No ass or grass policy here!” she paused, turning to look at Tucker with a hum, “Unless...” her eyes slunk to Simmons who somehow turned both pale and bright red and not so subtly shuffled to hide behind Grif's bulk, “I mean,” she continued, when her brother leveled a glare at her, waggling her perfectly penciled eyebrows at Locus, “If we're playing fast and loose here...”

“Por favor, alguien la amordaza ...” (Please, someone gag her...) Lopez moaned, from his place standing off behind Sarge. He supposedly was playing, or rather Sarge said he was, but he had no token and no money and no property, so... Rather he was just making comments periodically, his creator happily 'translating' to suit himself. Every once and a while though she could swear she saw Locus' mouth twitch, so maybe it was actually something amusing? Was a bit odd that he hadn't just left. “Espera, no, no hagas eso, a ella probablemente le gustaría.” (Wait, no, don't do that, she'd probably like it.) he added a moment later.

“You know it you, kinky boy!”

  
         Kai was... well she was Kia. Flopped over one of the recliners, she seemed to be constantly moving. Every time Carolina looked up she was in a different pose. Legs over the armrest, upside down with her head handing off the edge, curled up in a ball.

She had taken the game seriously for the first five rounds or so, but it had all fallen apart when she'd asked what they got when they won.

“So like...” she drawled as she threw the dice, “Did anyone decide on what we're playing for?”

“For?” Washington asked in confusion, “I don't think we're playing for anything. Right?”

A series of murmured confirmations floated about the room and Kai made a sound like they'd all come into her home and personally taken turns kicking her dog.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Then what's the poooooint?!”

“The point is to _win_ ,” Carolina answered sternly, in a way that had nothing to do with Kai's perfectly plucked eyebrows, because she was not looking at those. Because if she was that might indicate jealousy and she was certainly not jealous because things like that were vain and vapid and she was beyond that kind of thing. Obviously.

“Pft” the Hawaiian scoffed, “What good is winning when you don't win anything? If it was me and my friends we'd find a way to spice it up! Like a pot of actual cash or like go in on some good booze! Or- oh-oh! Or like one of those things where the winner gets to tell the loser what to do!”

Donut seemed to perk at the last part and Lopez said something in Spanish which managed to sound disdainful despite the monotone.

“Why don't we like, turn this shit into like strip poker?”

Grif groaned, “Kai, shut up. This isn't Poker, it's Monopoly, and **no one** is stripping!”

Sister scoffed, “Well obviously _you're_ not stripping, that would be fucking weird! But you can't tell me it's not a waste to have so many hot bods in this room with so many clothes on! Come _ooooooooon_ Dex! Don't you wanna watch your hubby squirm? I bet we all want to know if the curtains match the drapes!.”

Somewhere between her finishing that sentence and Simmons embarrassed squeak ascending to levels only dogs could hear, 'Dex' popped up to his feet and a not exactly fight ensued where the older Grif sibling seemed to be trying to smother the younger with a pillow he'd yanked up from the couch. Giving her a solid pummel with the fluffy piece of upholstery when she'd crowed and shrieked about him defending his boyfriend's honor.

Simmons seemed to be trying to will his soul out of his body to escape the embarrassment.

A couple rounds later and 'Sister' was done, tossing her properties to Tucker and joining her new 'old man' buddy in snarking and harassing everyone still in the game. Which in all honesty she seemed to enjoy far more than she had when actually playing. Despite previous comments, it seemed the peanut gallery had formed a truce as Sarge was splitting the gift of some hard whiskey that he'd materialized from god knew where and seemed to be marveling at how little a problem Grif's sister had knocking it back.

  
          Tucker, on the other side of Kai's chair, on the smaller sofa. He... Well... Like with most things he did, Tucker wasn't inherently bad, in reality, he was a pretty competent player. He bought properties he thought he should, put houses on them, had even won Kai's cards and booted her out of the game.

But... also like with most things. He was pretty insufferable about it.

“Psh! Pay up you losers!” He crowed, while Simmons rolled his eyes, counting out what they owed him having landed on his space.

“It's not that big a deal dude.” Grif groused, “It's only 200 bucks.”

“Maybe, but it's 200 you don't have any more!”

Carolina rolled her eyes, “Just throw the dice, Tucker.”

The teal soldier did just that, scooting his dog the right number of spaces, “Oh sweet! Look at that!” he grinned at the space he'd landed on, scooping up his money and flipping through bills, “See, it's all in the wrist!” he flashed Kai what Carolina figured was _supposed_ to be a sexy and alluring **leer** , which oddly enough Kai returned with a look of her own that Carolina couldn't quite puzzle. Something about it was a little... darker?

“A good twist in the wrist gets some good finger action going!” Donut chirped, “But you can't get too cocky or none of the parties involved will be satisfied.”

Why did that sound like a threat...?

“Uh, okay yeah, whatever. I'm gonna a buy this one... and I'm gonna put another house thing, here, here and...here.”

Donut shared a glance with Simmons, who then looked down at the board.

Oh.

Oooooh... It _was_ a threat.

She _liked_ those!

 

          Tucker didn't even realize he'd gotten everyone else turned against him, Donut's look to Simmons, Simmons' intent stare at the board and the dice, the way he gave one of her properties a pointed look, then one of his own, then one of Donut's, then Caboose's, he said something to Grif who then struck up a sudden casual conversation with Locus. Ah, no she got it, and with a subtle gesture to Wash, he got it too. One round later, Tucker found himself overbid and out of money, each of the other players had put a devastating amount of hotels on the most likely places he'd land the following turn, each having made sure to call a bid on their properties, goading him into bidding high. Donut had been very devious in that arena, talking a mile a minute, false praises and coy lines distracting Tucker from noticing the sudden very dangerous pattern.

Kai too deserved some credit, calling out flirtatious lines and lamenting 'sitting all alone over here!' when Tucker was trying to think. Her motivations were mercurial, to say the least, so whether the series of suggestive comments and obvious, unnecessary, stretching as she lounged was because she wanted revenge for him beating her, or because she was bored.

The fact that she didn't suggest they leave once he'd beckoned her to join him on the couch suggested that while probably both it may have been more the former.

Carolina couldn't find herself feeling particularly bad for him though when he handed her his money and property cards when he landed on her series of nightmare hotels.

  
Now, Donut, the mastermind of this event, was perched oddly daintily on the end of the couch primly holding his little collection of property cards like they were playing poker and hiding them from view would somehow help him. Every once and a while he'd rearrange the order of the cards with perfectly manicured nails, which he'd apparently done for the occasion, for some reason...?

Carolina supposed they were nice. If you were into that kind of thing.

Which she wasn't.

  
She hadn't had a manicure herself in **years**... Or had her eyebrows done.

  
Because things like that were superficial and pointless and she didn't want one.

 

  
No other reason.

 

  
          Now, Donut _was_ surprisingly crafty when he wanted to be as he'd proven, and his strategy seemed to revolve around messing with people when trying to either get them to sell their property or to distract from something he was doing, what property was being loaded up with houses or hotels.

“I just think its really nice that we decided to do this!” Donut commented cheerfully, flipping through his cards, “I feel like we never get to just sit down and _relax_! It's always some catastrophy or planet that needs saving!” he passed a stack of colorful 'bills' to Simmons in exchange for several small houses and two hotels.

He looked pointedly at Locus, “Don't you think so?”

“Um...” the now confused Hispanic man replied, “I suppose so?”

“Yes! I knew you'd agree!” the faux blonde cheered, leaning far too close to the other man, not even breaking eye contact as the set the buildings on the squares he wanted, “I mean, you are the new one here. We should be making you feel welcome! See I wanted to throw a party when you first joined up you know? But no one liked my spa idea! I would have been so much fun! Just break out the massage oil, working out all those awful _kinks_!”

“Dexter you bastard! You didn't tell me you guys had kinky massage parties!”

“We fucking don't Kai!”

“Liar!”

It might work on some people, but not her. Carolina could see through that shit a mile away! Not to mention that most of his babel seemed to involve innuendos and cranking people's discomfort up to eleven, and by virtue of her natural sex his particular... _brand_ , wasn't something that could phase her.

He' lasted a lot longer than she'd expected him too to be honest, But, too bad for him distractions and teasing were no replacement for actual strategy! One bad roll after two rounds in jail was enough to clean him out and shut him down.

Bad was Wash and Caboose ended up with his properties, but she could work with that.

  
          Locus was seated in a kitchen chair much like Sarge, he was across from him in fact, adjacent to her, and next to Wash. Carolina had assumed he would make it to the endgame, but no, he was actually the next to drop out. She wasn't even sure what happened to be totally honest.

One moment he seemed to be doing fine, but then Caboose drew from the community chest.

“Oh oh! Should I use this card, Mr. Agent Washington?”

Wash looked over at his hand, “If you want to. It's a good card. We can use it now or later if you think we're in trouble?”

Caboose's eyes grew wide and excited, “I want to use it now!” he looked around the table, “Oh! Who should I use it on? Me!?” Wash opened his mouth to protest, “WAIT! No. Not me. Ha ha! That would be silly!” he looked to Wash again, “Who is the best person?”

The ex-agent looked around the board, brow furrowed in confused concentration, “Um... Well... I mean... I guess anyone. They're all doing really well, so it will help us regardless?”

“OKIE DOKIE! I WILL CHOOSE!” Caboose bellowed, leveling a kind of an adorable ferocious stare at the other players. “Eenyyyyyy... Meeeeeeeeny.... Miiiiiiiny... MOE!”

Carolina didn't think she'd ever heard that rhyme said in such a dramatic and threatening way before...

“Catch a... TIGER! Byyyyy the tooooooooooe-It's LOCUS!”

The man in question actually blinked in genuine surprise.

“Ha ha! I tricked you!” the Blue declared, showing Locus the 'send another player to jail' card, “You thought it was going to be the tiger but it was you! There are no Tigers here!” he looked to Simmons, “Right?”

“Nope, no tigers.”

Caboose tapped his head and nodded in a 'see how smart?' gesture.

The bad roll Locus got when he paid to leave jail one turn later was enough to sink him and Caboose joyously showed all the cards he got to Washington.

The upset was absolutely astonishing.

  
          So now it was down to this. Wash and Caboose, Simmons and Grif, and her. Well, more all of them against her, because she wasn't going to lose!

She was not nervous. Not in the least! She was cool. Totally cool, cooool as a cucumber... Yes.

It wasn't like she was just now realizing the two completely different and unexpected kinds of players she was hitting the end game with, who had ways of playing so polar opposite that she might not be able to perfectly counter them...

  
          On the one hand, there was Wash and Caboose. You'd _think_ that Wash would be the one to look out for there but oooooh no. She knew enough, when it came to combat strategies Wash was passable, but outside of that? Weighing odds and statistics? Nope, total dud. Anyone paying attention the whole game would have realized that while he might be keeping them adhered to the rules keeping everything on the rails, but it was Caboose who was driving this thimble!

The larger Blue was completely erratic gameplay wise. The choices and risks he took had no rhyme or reason! By all accounts, they should have been among the first to drop out but somehow, **somehow** , Caboose had the devil's luck and had while they'd had some sharp pitfalls they'd managed to claw their way back up. Not to mention they had some pretty choice locations and smatterings of illogically placed hotels that could pose a serious problem...

  
          On the other end of the spectrum... Was Simmons and Grif. Simmons, at no surprise to anyone, could track numbers like a pro, he had a pretty good grasp on statistics and his strategies were fairly sound. It would not surprise her in any way to learn that he'd read the rule book back to front multiple times, for funsies, or if she was told that he regularly checked out strats for the game on the net. That in and of itself was concerning but alone it wouldn't be too terrible a problem, in fact, it would be the kind of problem she'd been expecting, which would already put her at an advantage. No, Simmons had the numbers and the know how, but he was easily intimidated and lost his nerve when it came to making tough calls. In short, he played too safe, any move strong and shocking enough would confuse him and lead to a mistake.

No. Alone he wouldn't be hard to handle.

But he was not alone.

Grif. Now you would think, that Grif was no real threat. That his laziness and irritation at work would carry over to the game, and you would be right. But... Grif liked to take risks, if it made things easier or seemed like it would, he'd go for it. She'd seen it happen in the field. A Grif with a goal was like a glacier, slow but unstoppable! Even then though, he wasn't a threat. By himself, Grif could be dealt with by making it too hard to win. Too much effort needed and he'd just fold, if he didn't care enough then it wasn't worth it.

So two people who should be easy to beat. Stick them together and they're still simple to deal with right? **WRONG**! Because these were the Reds and like the nonsensical nature of Caboose they too did not make sense. Put Grif and Simmons together in this game and they became a nightmare. A guy who knew the game in and out, who could weigh the odds in his head, and a guy with a knack for risk and the ability to coax his boyfriend into taking them.

  
Shit...

So maybe she was going to have to actually try with this, bolster her defenses against Wash and Caboose and wait for the right opening to decimate Grif and Simmons... Whatever! She could do it!

  
So luck (No! Effort, effort! Not dumb luck!) was on her side. The next roll was Grif and Simmons' and while the roll was good the space they landed on was not. They had to draw a card and as their misfortune would have it, they went right to jail.

Simmons was visibly distraught. “Oh _nooo_ ,” he groaned, flopping against the backrest of the couch where they sat, “We're going to have to buy our way out next round... We can't do anything while we're in there, we don't get any money from 'go' and it puts us so far back!”

“Chill.” Grif soothed, patting his wavering boyfriend on the back, “It's cool.”

“But Grif! This is one of the worst things that could happen!”

The heavy man huffed, he leaned in closer, to Carolina's surprise, and said something she couldn't hear. The redhead looked up from where he'd had his head in his hands and gave his boyfriend a skeptical look.

“I'm serious.” Grif said with an exasperated smile, “It's cool dude, don't worry about it.”

Simmons frowned.

“Dude.” Grif laughed, scooping up the little metal car and plunking it down in the jail, “Just look at it, I'm right.” as his the taller man followed his advice the Hawaiian looked up at the other players and added, “We're not posting bail. We'll sit.”

When he sat back, Simmons actually beamed at him, glancing at the board and then back, shockingly he actually, well not _cuddled,_ but curled up a bit against Grif, grinning like a loon.

  
What had... Oh... oh no!

Shit! Going to jail actually DID help them. They may not get to place more hotels but they didn't need to. The portion of the board after the jail space was almost all theirs! There were only a couple spaces that weren't and they were Caboose's, with the erratically placed houses! Two rounds in there and then on round three to be nearly safe! Shit!

As Carolina picked up the dice she realized her own predicament... her piece, wasn't too far ahead of them... in fact... she was facing a stretch where in order to land on a safe space, she'd need a 10 or higher! Not impossible but not very likely. If she landed on one of Grif and Simmons' squares... it wasn't enough to bankrupt her, but she'd have to give up property to cover the cost! This late in the game that could spell the beginning of the end for her!

...She could do this... She could. Even if this didn't go well she would NOT be beaten!

With a deep breath, she reached for the dice.

Shook them in her hand.

  
And threw them!

  
          What exactly happened next was unclear.

Carolina hadn't been watching their little audience, she knew some people had gotten up for a snack or the bathroom or whatever. It had been several hours. But this...

Far as she would understand it after the fact, at some point Donut and Tucker and Kai had struck up a conversation, the sort that only _they_ could have, and someone had said something about Lopez and Kai- well... Kai had reached over, covertly, and pinched Lopez's ass.

The robot had cursed loudly and jumped, bumping into Sarge's chair. Sarge, who was half dozed off, had groggily snapped away, shrieked something about 'Blue betrayals, deceit and lies!' and **kicked over the table**.

The board flew the fuck off to the other end of the room, player pieces pinging off of people and furniture, property cards and money once resting on the table were launched up into the air, fluttering down like something out of a low budget sitcom. The dice... Well, one, sailed off into nowhere, the other bounced up and pinged Carolina right between the eyes.

It didn't hurt. Well, it didn't hurt her _physically_...

  
“Oh,” Locus said, in the ensuing silence, “Well, I guess that's it...”

The rest of the room burst out laughing.

  
Carolina... didn't know how to feel. She'd been so close to a pivotal moment! Should she feel relieved that she hadn't rolled poorly? She should feel mad that they didn't finish! Demand that they sort this out and put everything back and finish this so she could win and-!

  
But... She... didn't?

No. She didn't feel that way at all. But shouldn't she? If she didn't win, then how was she supposed to...

But as she looked around the room, at all the others. Kai practically hanging off of Tucker, both gasping and wheezing with laughter. Donut actually hiding his face in the couch back, twisted around and shaking, laughs loud enough to be heard even when muffled. Sarge too, slapping his knee and regarding Lopez like he was some little kid pranking the family. Even Locus, trying to hide how his shoulders shook, covering his mouth with his hand. Washington with his quiet laugh and Caboose full of giggles, scooping up handfuls of papers and cards, passing them to Simmons, face red and eyes actually half teared up from how hard he was laughing, already trying to organize what he was handed. Grif barely managing not to drop the box it was all going in, making little squeaking sounds periodically as he cackled.

  
Why had she been so concerned with winning this game...? This, this here? Was so much better.

Unable to stop the smile that blossomed on her face, Carolina's own laughter joined in, and she moved to help them.

  
END

**Author's Note:**

> There we go! Last prompt and right on time! I hope you guys enjoyed this fun bit of Red and Blue Family Fluff™!  
> Since these are being written for a challenge and I'm posting them quickly, please let me know about any mistakes you guys see so I can correct them! :D
> 
> All these prompts, as well as my other work, can all be seen on my tumblr if you want to stop by! http://cc-sketchbook.tumblr.com
> 
> Let me know what you guys thought and see you next time! Much love! ~ CC


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